Various utility services, such as electrical power, natural gas, and water, are commonly delivered to homes and businesses as a commodity and then billed to the consumer of the utility based on their usage of the utility. The usage of the utility is typically measured by a utility meter that is commonly on the premises of the consumer and monitors the transfer of the commodity from the utility provider to the consumer in real time.
Standard meters that are commonly used may measure the transfer of the commodity using methods that are applicable to the particular utility. So, for example, an electrical meter may measure the magnetic flux of the current flowing through a conductor, the voltage across the mains, the voltage drop across a low resistance in series with the load, or any combination of those, or other, methods. A gas or water meter may use a mechanical flow meter or use a pitot tube to measure the flow velocity. Standard meters, historically, have included a display of some sort that was readable by a human being. A “meter reader” would then make periodic visits to the meter to determine the current meter value which could then be used to bill the consumer. In the last decade or two, it has become common for a standard meter to provide some kind of signal that could be machine readable at a short distance so that a meter reader would only need to get within a certain distance to read the meter value. These meters could be read by simply driving down the street or pulling in the driveway, and use a variety of technologies, such as radio frequency (RF) identification (ID) tag technology and short range RF communication protocols. But standard utility meters may not provide more advanced usage-related data, such as costs and usage profiles over time.
Utility meters have emerged in recent years that may provide more advanced usage data and may have more advanced communication capabilities. Such meters may connect to a wide area network (WAN) to communicate directly to the utility provider's network, or a third party WAN, such as a third generation (3G) cellular data network, to provide connectivity to the utility provider. In some cases, the advanced utility meters may connect to a home area network (HAN) or local area network (LAN) and may allow a consumer to access the advanced usage data from the utility meter. In some cases, the advanced utility meter may still connect to the utility provider though a provider network or public WAN, in addition to its connection to the HAN/LAN. Advanced utility meters are being deployed by some utility providers in some geographic areas, but much of the existing infrastructure is still using standard meters.